Core

The sixth annual Technology CMO Roundtable, presented by Arketi and our media partner PR News, buzzed with ideas, best practices, learnings, questions and – most importantly – actionable insights. With more than 50 marketing and PR executives at 14 roundtables, this was the largest such event to date. During the sometimes spirited conversations, five consistent themes emerged:

1. Buyer-centric marketing – it’s a must: Buyer-centric thinking places customers at the center of all marketing priorities. Aggressive BtoB marketers are responding to the new buying dynamics by developing personas for the company’s different buyers, and mapping those to messages that motivate them to engage.
2. Content is conversion king: The central role of content was a given for all the Roundtable participants. While many were focused on generating an avalanche of content, some had begun to question the strategic value of the “quantity over quality” approach. For them, content rationalization was as important as content creation.

-> more after the jump

	BtoB Benchmark				Take-Away
	A 2012 report by Aberdeen Group found that on average, salespeople in the companies studied spent the equivalent of 200 hours per year in non-productive time searching for customer data.				Prospecting takes time and research, but if salespeople have the right information to provide insight into the prospect’s purchase behavior and propensity to buy, they can prospect more efficiently. There are three key ways that BtoB reps can find prospects with a high GTR (Grief-to-Revenue) ratio. Learn more.

-> continued

3. The value of video: In the discussions of emerging social media channels, it was not Pinterest, Orkut or Instagram that seemed to catch the eyes of the BtoB marketers in attendance. Rather, “old school” online video was most popular.
4. The halo effect is still a heavenly marketing tactic: Partner marketing is nothing new in the BtoB space, and Roundtable participants were in broad agreement that – when done right – it’s a win-win. The key is to understand the capabilities, limitations, and expectations of both the smaller and larger partner.
5. CMO meet CIO, CIO meet CMO: Gartner recently announced that Marketing is the new technology buyer – predicting that by 2017, the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO. Roundtable attendees concurred. They also agreed that it’s time for the CMO and CIO to share ownership of the technology rush in the marketing department, and the business outcomes this technology can deliver.

-> more after the jump

	Arketi Named Top B2B Marketing Twitter Influencer				Arketi Wins BtoB Social Media Marketing Award
	Arketi was named one of the top 50 B2B marketing influencers on Twitter. The list was compiled by Michael Brenner and posted to his award-winning B2B Marketing Insider blog. To see the complete list, click here.				Arketi’s Technology Tweet Tournament for the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) was named Runner-Up in the Twitter category of BtoB’s Social Media Marketing Awards. To view all the winners, click here.

-> continued

Roundtable participants were also in broad agreement on the value of several marketing tactics, giving some a “thumbs up” and others a “thumbs down” – including a few counter to current industry buzz.

In the “thumbs up” column, the group was in support of search marketing, content marketing, and big data and metrics. Meanwhile, they gave a qualified “thumbs down” to mobile marketing, mobile applications, and tradeshows.

Core subscribers are being given a sneak peak at the proceedings from this event, which are scheduled to be released publicly next month. We encourage you to download an advance copy of The Outlook for Business-to-Business Technology Marketing in 2013, and let us know what you think about the topics discussed and the trends that emerged.

Thanks for reading Core. If you liked this article, please share it! And please send your comments, compliments and criticisms to us at core@arketi.com.